


The Legacies We Carry

by Zelos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends, Frenemies, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Missing Scene, Redemption, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 15:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15537564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: “Isaac. Erica. Boyd. Scott.”Mom.She couldn’t say the last. Wasn’t fair. Self-defense, after all. But it stillhurt.“You turned them into foot soldiers in a war they had no business being in.”“Who started that war, then?” It wasn’t mocking this time, but a distant bitterness. “Your side or mine?”Common goals alone don’t bury common ghosts. Allison and Derek confront their bloody debts and bloodier legacies. Set during 3b as a missing scene.





	The Legacies We Carry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clotpolesonly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/gifts).



> Takes place in the interim between _Echo House_ and _The Fox and the Wolf:_ after the explosion at the station, before they picked up Void!Stiles’ trail (I stretched the timeline a little).

Most people knew the sound of doors opening as a deadbolt sliding back, a creak of the knob, and a squeak of hinges. Allison knew hers as all that, plus the whine of (some of the) cameras powering down, the alarm deactivating, and the motion sensor traps fading into standby.

Isaac had said the armed crossbows were overkill. Allison had suggested, somewhat sarcastically, that he call ahead. Given the kind of supers they ran into nowadays, all the traps combined still barely made a dent.

By the time the last whirs faded and the door properly swung open, Allison was already at the door. “Dad!”

Chris pulled her into a hug, kicking the door shut behind him. “Hi, sweetheart.”

Allison pulled back to check him over. She knew, she’d been told, but she had to ask anyway: “you’re okay?”

“Completely. Derek took the brunt of it. Had to do a bit of fast talking to cover for why _he_ was still alive, and I’ll pick up the confiscated stuff tomorrow, but I am a free man.”

Werewolves could consciously inhibit their own healing. Allison bit her lip, picturing Derek dripping blood, his expression blank and body rigid as doctors picked out shrapnel and wrapped him up in bandages he didn’t need. Werewolves bled red, just the same as humans.

Kate had bled dry before the paramedics could arrive. There had been no paramedics for her mother—just the police, just the coroner.

Allison swallowed, trying to keep her voice light; it came out bitter. “I’m sure Peter was very disappointed.”

Her father’s smile cracked in the corners, and he was probably thinking of the same things too. “I’ll bet.” He eyed the spread of maps and books, more optimistic than useful. “Homework?”

“Plans.” Her schoolbooks lay in a discarded pile on the floor. There was only so many times she could check and re-check every weapon in the house, every map of the county. She was going insane. She would scream louder than Lydia.

“That’s what I meant.”

Allison swallowed, eyes stinging. “I’ve been over, and over, and _over_ all of this. All of it. I don’t know what to _do_.” She was _seven-fucking-teen_ and thinking about how to murder one of her friends, because if push came to shove she might be the only one who could. A year ago the height of her worries was being held back in school and her father’s biblical groundings.

Seventeen, and she knew fifteen ways to kill a man without breaking a sweat. But she hasn’t learned—yet—how to dispose of a body, doctor a corpse, and lie, lie, lie. She hasn’t learned how to break her own heart. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. She wasn’t sure she had a choice.

Chris paused, choosing his words, and when he spoke his voice was careful and measured and weighed a million tons. “Exactly what you’re doing. Plan. He wants us to panic. We can’t run around like we did last time.”

“Does _Stiles_ have time? What if we’re too late?” Her words cracked in the middle, a hard, wrenching sob.

Her father looked her in the eye. Her parents never were one for empty reassurances. “Sorry.”

As if it was his to apologize _for_. As if he had apologized _enough_ for her mother, for Kate, for his secrets. Secrets upon secrets upon secrets.

“What about Lydia?” Chris asked after a moment. “Can she find him?”

Allison shook her head. “She called last time a colossal failure. She—” _can_ _’t, won’t_ “—is afraid of trying again unless someone can help her.”

Lydia poring over piles and piles of books and articles, searching for some way she could help, for her to be _useful_. Her voice, dripping acid and bitterness as they drove away from Peter in the loft: _I_ _’ve had more help from Wikihow articles_. Lydia and Allison exchanging texts that turned to calls that turned into _more_ texts after they’d already said goodnight, until one or both of them fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

They needed to help. They needed _help_. And none of them knew where, or how, or who.

Chris tilted his head. “Whom have you asked so far?”

Allison looked away. “No one useful.”

“Have you tried Derek?”

Allison whirled back to stare. “ _Derek?_ ”

Chris did a one-shouldered, careful shrug. “He saved my life.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Gritted her teeth. “If he knew fuck-all about Lydia, wouldn’t he have _volunteered_ it by now?”

Maybe she wasn’t fair—not after the bank, after Scott, after Erica, but to _hell_ with being fair. She couldn’t think of Derek without picturing the red of his eyes, a mouth full of fangs, her mother’s last words in a smouldering pile of ash.

Her father was watching her. “Would you be any worse off?”

Her pride, maybe.

Was pride worth Lydia’s distress? Was pride worth Stiles’ life?

“We have to look at the big picture,” Chris said quietly. “Sometimes that means the many before the few. Sometimes that means sacrifice. But sacrifices aren’t always _lives_.”

She stared at him for a moment. They’d despised supernaturals for so long, werewolves in particular and the Hales doubly so, given their family histories. To have her father defend Derek was…alien. To have him _support_ Derek was…unthinkable.

_How do we approach a situation like this, Allison?_

_Clinically. And_ _…unemotionally._

All her life she’d been raised to prize cool heads and colder logic. Maybe her parents hadn’t told her to outright _bury_ her emotions but they taught her to never _rely_ on them, and never, ever let them interfere with her goals. Goal: save Stiles. Goal: help Lydia (save Stiles). The rest was window dressing.

She looked down at her hands. There were still bruises from Lydia’s fingers.

Allison clenched her jaw. “I don’t suppose you have his number?”

 

She beat Derek to the school by ten minutes. Only Derek Hale could make “on time” feel like “unfashionably late”.  When he finally did pull up (right on time, down to the second, even though he undoubtedly saw her long before), all he said was a mild, “where’s Lydia?”

Allison glowered at him. “I’m not giving you someone to use against me.” She didn’t want to get Lydia’s hopes up for nothing.

“Just you and me then?” No raised eyebrows, no snide remarks. It was disconcerting. She has a hand crossbow levelled at him and Derek could not look more unaffected if it had been made out of plastic with HASBRO stickered on its butt.

Allison glanced around at the empty parking lot. “Why the school?”

“Our family vault is under the school. This entrance doesn’t require us to break in the school first.” Derek stared at the stone monument, eyes distant. “We had a study where we kept most of our things, but, well…”

There was a long, lingering pause, filled with ghosts.

“Anyway.” There was just the slightest catch in Derek’s voice as he strode up to the sign. “If my parents had anything about banshees not in the study, it’d be in here.” He popped his claws, stabbed them into the grate, and twisted.

Allison had to bite back a gasp as the sign slid away. Derek, expression never changing, strode down the stone steps without a word or a backward glance.

He was showing his back to her. Allison wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

The first thing Allison spotted was the massive safe in the middle of the stone room, but Derek walked right past that: “that’s for emergencies, not storage. Try the shelves or boxes.”

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Maybe Allison would let Lydia into the vault as a birthday present; Lydia would have a field day. (Derek’s acquiesce was entirely optional.)

“Probably my parents’ version of a bestiary. Mom’s organization system was…known only to herself. Just start looking.”

Allison picked up the nearest book; the layer of dust was thicker than the book itself. “And you don’t know any of this…why?”

“Were you interested in extra homework?” Derek was not looking at her; Allison considered shooting him.

The vault had no light source, only the dim moonlight filtering in from the entrance (shouldn’t they close that? Wait, did she _want_ to get locked in a stone room with a werewolf?). Of course the Hales hadn’t thought to put _lights_ in their vault. Werewolves had great night vision, but Allison wasn’t so lucky; she vaguely resented her past self for forgetting a flashlight. She hadn’t known she was going dungeon crawling.

She palmed her phone and turned on the backlight, squinting at the specimens on the shelves. The whole thing felt creepy and vaguely sinister, which would actually be pretty cool if she was exploring it with anybody _but_ Derek.

“Hey, Allison. Catch.”

Instinct and training (and maybe a little sheer blind luck) kicked in; she snatched the object out of midair. It was heavy and cylindrical, with a solid metal body, and—

Allison gaped. “You brought a _flashlight?_ ”

She could hear Derek’s smile (smirk?), though his voice remained mild. “You’ll kill your battery. Reception’s crappy here as it is.”

Allison bristled. “I don’t need _help_ to deal with you.”

Derek shrugged and shuffled back to his side of the room. Allison scowled ineffectively into the dark, wildly, fleetingly angry, her hand gripped tight around the flashlight like she could feel better by being mad at it.

…he was right though. There was no point in wasting her battery.

With one last dirty look in Derek’s direction, Allison pocketed her phone, turned on the flashlight, and resumed her search.

 

Three hours in, Allison crossed “archivist” off of her list of potential future careers. She had long abandoned her pistol (the holster was digging into her back) and the crossbow (she needed her hands free), and was seriously considering setting down the flashbangs and sonic grenades because she kept bumping into them with her knees when she crouched down. Despite the antihistamines she’d taken she was still sneezing up a storm; Derek, of course, had no such issue.

This was a very roundabout way of hunting down the nogitsune, but some time after the first hour or so it’d become more about _Lydia_ than it was about rescuing Stiles. Rescuing Stiles was still first priority, but she’d already wasted this much time with Derek Hale, damn if she wouldn’t have anything to show for it. Damn if she couldn’t actually do something.

Damn if she couldn’t actually _save someone_ , for a change.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from her dad: _everything okay?_

 _At school_ , she texted back. _Room under the sign_. If it came to it she was sure her dad could blow it open.

Derek was on the other side of the room sifting through banker boxes of paper. In the dim, his hunched profile looked…a little like Peter.

Peter, who obviously knew _something_ about Lydia and didn’t give a damn. Versus Derek, who apparently knew nothing but was willing to spend hours with Allison, digging through his family vault.

_Auntie Kate. Didn_ _’t do her much good as I ripped her throat out, did it?_

Derek ripped out Peter’s throat too. Macabre irony.

“Did you find something?”

Allison started. “What? No.”

Derek eyed her from across the room. “You’re staring.”

“Sorry, I—” Wait, no, she wasn’t _sorry_. Not to him. Not for a damn thing. Why was _she_ saying sorry?

Allison spun back to her box, quick as a shot. Floundered for something to cover her indiscretion. “You know, you never said. Why would your family know about banshees anyway? Learn about them, keep records of them, whatever.” She _wanted_ them to have something useful, but she still wondered _why_. “Peter, _and_ your mom?”

“Peter considers himself a scholar.” The dryness in Derek’s voice indicated just what he thought of that. “And we…were the protectors of Beacon Hills.”

“Protectors.” Allison turned to stare, trying not to sound incredulous and failing miserably. “ _You?_ ”

Her father’s face, grudging and solemn: _he saved my life._

Allison clamped her mouth shut.

Derek stared at her, full-on; his eyes glowed briefly, barely there and already gone. “Yes, us.” There was an edge to the words now. “Who else? Hunters? With your code? _We hunt those who hunt us?_ ”

Allison clenched her jaw. Took a deep, ragged breath. “That’s not how we do things anymore.” French rolled off her tongue, easier than English. “Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger leurs-même.”

Derek hummed. “You started this? Or your dad?”

“Me.” Allison raised her chin. “The Argents are matriarchal.”

“Did the rest of your hunter cabal agree?”

“It’ll spread.” She wished she was as confident as she sounded.

“I’m sure they thought they were protecting people with their old code, too.”

Allison gripped the handle of her knife, fingers wrapping around the comfortable hilt. “I’m not Kate.” It did not come out anywhere near as steady as she hoped.

“You’re certainly comfortable with your sweeping prejudices.”

She flung her sheaf of paper to the floor. “I’m not judging you by Peter, or by the rest of you!” Her voice echoed in the stone room, tumbled out into the night. “I’m judging you by _you_.”

Derek waited until the echoes had fallen out of the air. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and carefully controlled. “Isaac?”

“Isaac. Erica. Boyd. Scott.” _Mom._ She couldn’t say the last. Wasn’t fair. Self-defense, after all. But it still _hurt_. “You turned them into foot soldiers in a war they had no business being in.”

“Who started that war, then?” It wasn’t mocking this time, but a distant bitterness. “Your side or mine?”

Allison didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

Allison had spent a long time crying after Kate died. Cried harder still, after her mother died. Her father had practically ripped the heirloom necklace from her throat to plant on Kate’s body. Allison had hated him for that, hated him for judging Kate for—for something she _did_ do.

Kate’d practically been her _sister_. Shopping advice, long runs together, cheering on her gymnastic meets. Building campfires, hunting game, lake swims during camping trips, long conversations on the phone. Teasing her about dates and Scott’s pretty doe eyes.

The code condemned werewolves only with incontrovertible proof—or it was supposed to. Not condemn eight souls— _protectors_ , some of them; _innocents_ , some of them—to an agonizing death.

Fleur de lis. Argent.

She wished she could still be proud.

Derek frowned, expression softening to something vaguely guilty. “Hey, look—”

Allison turned away and picked up the sheaf of paper from the floor. Her eyes stung. Stupid dust.

_Clinically_ _…and unemotionally._

Try as she might, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

 

The bestiary hadn’t gone into detail about the physiological requirements of werewolves, and she never really had the chance to ask. Her immediate reaction post-supernatural reveal had been overtaken by Scott’s lying and Peter’s rampage, and her delayed reaction had been complicated by her clandestine relationship drama and an endless well of grief.

How much did werewolves need to sleep? Less, because of the healing factor? More, to accommodate the higher energy demands? Did non-magical drugs help? Was there any point to her and Isaac’s coffee runs?

Allison popped the cap off of the bottle of modafinil she’d taken from her father and dry swallowed a pill. She hadn’t asked her father for permission, and Chris hadn’t exactly protested. He’d just watched with much the same expression as the one on Derek’s face right now.

“You all right?” Derek sounded doubtful and concerned and maybe a little irritated at himself for said concern.

She capped the pill bottle the same way Lydia capped her lipstick: aggressively and with finality. “Did you find anything?”

Derek hummed an affirmative and held out the papers. Allison crossed the room, startling a little at the name lit by her flashlight beam. “Lorraine Martin?”

“Sounds familiar?”

“Yeah, I think…Lydia mentioned her once.” She frowned. “Why does your family have records from Eichen House?”

“Keeping an eye on suspected supernaturals in Beacon Hills.” Derek paused, and his next words came out a bit thick: “we were supposed to be protectors. We were never supposed to leave.”

Allison bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. She kept her flashlight beam fixed pointedly on the pages she took from Derek: intake forms, psychiatric evaluations, patient history, and— “She drove someone to a breakdown?”

“Yeah. And…patient claimed to have predicted her partner’s death before it actually happened. There were years of mediums, psychics, psychologists, and hearing voices. Sound like anyone we know?”

“A connection to the dead,” Allison said slowly. “Like the motel.”

“Come again?”

“We were at a motel. Highest number of suicides in California. Lydia kept hearing voices, and she thought they were of…the people who’d died. Everyone was really weird that night. We blamed it on Coach’s wolfsbane whistle…” Allison swallowed. “That’s why Lydia did that thing with the nails. They’re the parts of the body that are dead.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed. “What thing?”

Allison didn’t answer directly and continued paging through the stack. “What about the person she drove to the hospital?”

Derek sighed and went back to digging in his box. “Dunno. Patient records are usually pretty vague about the specifics of other patients, even if the first put the second there. We might have to cross check with Melissa for the hospital side.”

It was a start. Lydia could find the rest. “Did it say what happened to Lorraine?”

“Died in Eichen. Brain hemorrhage.”

Hell of a way to go. And even still, probably a relief. Was it bad of her to think that way? Allison felt a little sick.

Lorraine’s final years probably hadn’t been pleasant. Hearing voices of the dead, predicting death long before it happened…it was enough to drive anyone mad. In a way, her family was almost lucky: quick deaths, clean deaths, mostly honourable. No drawn-out suffering. She’d want that for herself, too.

She was seventeen and thinking of how to die. She was seventeen and thinking of how to spare her best friend this.

“Let’s keep looking.” Her knees were creaking. No adrenaline to blunt the ache, only a manic determination. “We might find some—what is it?”

Derek was frowning, his eyes on the open door. “Someone’s coming.” A pause, a tilt of the head. “Car.”

“It’s the middle of the night!” She was already halfway across the room and reaching for her discarded weapons.

“Yeah, well.” Derek darted to the door, papers in hand. “Wait it out, or abort?”

Allison hesitated, but only for a second. “Abort.” She would not be locked in a vault with Derek for who knew how long. She’d come back later—with Lydia, with the others.

With Derek. (Obviously. He has to open the door.)

Allison bolted up the stairs, Derek right behind her; the school sign grated closed, stone on stone loud enough to wake the dead. Sound carried very well on quiet, clear nights.

Derek swung his head towards the road, his eyes briefly flashing blue, then whirled to face Allison. “Get in the car.”

“What?” The Camaro beeped twice as its doors unlocked.

“Get in the back! Weapons on the floor.”

“We can take them!” Despite herself, Allison scrambled into the backseat. “Where are you taking—” her words ended in a muffled shriek as Derek threw himself _on top_ of her. “Get off of—”

“Shhhhh!”

Allison froze. Derek propped himself up slightly so he wasn’t crushing her windpipe, though with not enough room for her to swing at him properly.

She settled for driving her knee into his ribs and was rewarded with a _very_ satisfying “oof”. “Get the _hell_ off—”

“Shhhhh,” he hissed again as headlights swept the car. “Stay here.” He pulled back onto his knees, bumped his head on the ceiling (served him right), and backed out of the car. There was a long pause, a clearing of the throat, and then: “Uh, hello.”

A deputy stopped in front of Derek, flashlight in hand, looking him up and down. “Well, you saved me from having to knock on your window.” The deputy shone the flashlight through the open door at Allison, who winced and blocked her eyes. “Just you two? Is that your car over there, miss?”

“Yeah.” Derek sounded uncomfortable.

Allison sat up and covertly slid off the seat a little, covering her crossbow and the papers with her body. “Just us.”

“Did you hear that awful noise earlier?”

“Uh, nope.” Derek rolled his shoulders and shuffled in place. He cast Allison a sidelong glance. “Just us. Right, Allison?”

“Yeah. Just…” Allison trailed off as she realized the deputy was also looking at her, his eyebrows quirking. She looked down. Her sweater had rode up from when she accidentally-not-really fell off the seat, exposing a strip of skin. Nothing _scandalous_ , but it did not pair well with Derek’s tousled hair from when he hit his head on the ceiling.

She tugged the sweater down and looked up again. The deputy seemed to be fighting a smile.

Oh. No. _No_. Derek fucking Hale was not, _was not_ implying—

She looked back at Derek. He’d stuffed his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched like he was trying to make himself smaller. It only underscored just what they were supposedly—

“We…” Allison could feel herself turning red. “We were just…” Her mouth opened and closed, and she couldn’t bring herself to articulate _just_ what they were or were not doing. “Just…”

The deputy cleared his throat. “Well, at least you two are both of age.”

He and Derek were about the same age, which made Derek’s hedging even more ridiculous. In another life they’d probably be high-fiving each other about Derek’s fucking conquest, the _pigs_.

Derek canted his head and finally mumbled, “she’s…mature.”

If looks could kill, Derek Hale would have incinerated on the spot. She would start another Hale fire by force of will alone.

The deputy stepped back with a small cough. “Look, I’m just doing my rounds. There’s been a lot of weird stuff going on around here. Don’t let me find you when I come back.”

“Uh,” Derek said to the ground.

“We _weren_ _’t_ ,” Allison said uselessly, but the deputy had already returned to his cruiser, flashing his high beams in salute.

She waited until the cruiser had pulled away before she leapt out of the Camaro. She even managed to snatch a fistful of Derek’s shirt, werewolf reflexes be damned. “ _I_ _’m going to kill you_.”

Derek Hale has four inches and at least eighty pounds of muscle over her, supernatural strength notwithstanding, but he sagged like a rag doll, not meeting her eyes. He looked…stricken. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“You—” She couldn’t finish. She was pissed. He was _distressed,_ eyes flickering like a bad TV. Fury gave way to disgust gave way to…something resembling concern; she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask _what_ _’s wrong_ , but she let go of his shirt.

They stared at each other as Derek staggered upright and swallowed, once, twice, and finally, finally collected himself. “Sorry.” He took a ragged breath, mouthing words she couldn’t read, centering himself with a mantra she didn’t know. “I didn’t think…” He swallowed again, pulse jumping in his throat. “I didn’t think. Sorry.”

That was no answer at all, but some part of her wanted to know—wanted it so badly she resolved never to ask. “Fine. We’re done, right?”

Derek nodded.

Allison stalked back to the Camaro. Took her crossbow and Lorraine’s Eichen papers. Slammed the door out of spite, hard enough to make them both jump. She eyed him, he looked back. The gulf between them seemed to narrow, the spaces dark and silent; their histories were laid bare between them, huge and jagged and insurmountable.

Some part of her wanted to say thank you—maybe she would’ve, if not for the stunt he just pulled. She bit her cheek, old anger and new regrets. The second one scared her most. “I’m not doing this for you.”

Maybe Lydia would find some answers. Maybe it’d just lead to more questions.  Maybe Allison could forgive, one day.

“I’m not doing it for you either,” Derek replied, but it had no heat, and maybe he was lying too.

Out here in the brighter gloom of nightfall and moonlight, Derek no longer looked like Peter. The family resemblance was there, but different: the cut of cheekbones, the dark of his eyes.

Peter motherfucking Hale, all lies and half-truths, sneering and strutting like the world owed him. Kate and Victoria Argent, hard and poised and sharp like a knife. Talia Hale, mother and alpha and legend, a victim and a liar in her own right.

Allison didn’t _really_ believe the Hales were protectors of Beacon Hills. If nothing else, knowing what they did, why did they leave Lorraine in Eichen to rot? Knowing what they did, why didn’t they say something, why didn’t they _help_?

But that was on the Hales, and not on Derek. He’d been young, he’d been grieving. Besides, he wasn’t the first whose family sold him a pack of lies.

_I’m judging you by you._

She took a deep breath. She didn’t know what she meant to say, but what came out was, “you’re not Peter.”

It wasn’t much of a compliment, but it hit Derek all the same: two rapid blinks, a hike of eyebrows, softness and pain and faint surprise.

A long, gossamer silence, counted in heartbeats Derek could undoubtedly hear. Then he said, barely audible, “and you’re not Kate.”

It was no kind of absolution; congrats, you’re not a murderer. But he _wasn_ _’t_ , and she _wasn_ _’t_ , and for them, that was a step; for them, that was a victory.

Allison turned for her car again, already dialling Lydia’s number; Derek’s eyes were on her back, murder-blue, and she was not afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> I posit that Lydia was too young for her to have known the details about Lorraine’s connection with death as it was happening; thus, Lorraine’s later years were brushed off as “your grandmother is going mad with grief” rather than “your grandmother claimed to predict death”. This is my explanation of how Lydia connected the dots of Lorraine’s abilities, Maddy, and Meredith’s involvement years after the fact…and yet still had to discover her powers for herself along the way (with Meredith’s help).


End file.
